


Art Appreciation

by NeoVenus22



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Episode: s10e13 The Road Not Taken, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-13
Updated: 2010-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 22:53:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoVenus22/pseuds/NeoVenus22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam goes to visit Lorne and discovers his dirty little secret.  ('Road Not Taken' universe; AU post-'Lost City'.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Art Appreciation

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: 10x13, 'The Road Not Taken'; 7x07, 'Enemy Mine'; 7x21-7x22, 'Lost City'; Lorne background spoilers from Atlantis 3x17, 'Sunday'

Sam hadn't really expected anything when she knocked on Evan's door and was granted access with a distracted, "Come in," but she certainly hadn't ever counted on seeing him standing in front of an easel with a brush in hand. "Painting?" she asked.

"Oh, hey, Sam," he said. "Close the door behind you?" Which she did, with a smirk. "It's a good way to unwind," he explained, though she noted he sidestepped as to cover the contents of the easel with his body.

"I didn't know you painted at all." She felt conspicuous standing in the middle of his quarters, but they weren't quite good enough friends she could justify taking a seat on his bed like she could in Daniel or Teal'c's quarters, and the chair was draped with a jacket.

"Mom was an art teacher," he said.

"And did you get any talent?" Sam craned her neck none-too-subtly to try and see, but he wove to block her without thought.

"Some people think so."

Sam deflated. "Oh, come on, Evan, I've tried being casual about it."

"Yes, very stealth," he scoffed with a good-natured grin. Sam had to laugh at herself.

"Are you going to let me see?"

He shook his head stoutly. "Definitely not before it's done."

"And after?"

"Maybe. We'll see."

"All right." Momentarily satisfied, she scooped his jacket off the chair and sat down in its place. While she was distracted, Evan turned the easel around. Sam pretended not to notice. "So what do you paint, landscapes or figures? Or maybe you're into abstract?"

Evan chuckled. "Not much landscape around here," he said, waving his hand at the sparse décor.

"Ah, so, figure-drawing."

"You know how hard it is getting proportion right for an Asgard?"

"I bet," she giggled. "So, are you making a tribute to our favorite little gray aliens?"

"The Thor-a Lisa?" he said. "That's none of your business," he cautioned her, flicking his paintbrush at her in warning. She flinched to avoid splatter, but was relieved to find the brush was relatively dry. Or, at least, she was.

Sam opted to change tactics. "Who else knows about this hobby of yours?"

Evan's gaze kept sliding back to his easel, to make sure it was securely from her view. "Uh, just you," he said, going over to the bed and perching himself slightly awkwardly at the end of the mattress. "Oh, and the night shift laundry room attendant. There was some paint on my pants one time, blue, she flipped out and thought it was an alien substance."

"That did not happen," she scoffed.

"Of course it did. Would I lie to you?"

Sam stared him down, willing him to back out. "No one on this base is that gullible."

"What, to believe dried blue gunk is alien goo, or to believe that I gave that woman a heart attack?"

Sam did her very best Teal'c move, one gotten from years of intense study, and raised her eyebrow, the only sign of movement in her stoic face. She held this for five seconds, ten seconds, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, before Evan finally caved. "All right. So she didn't think it was an alien substance. But she did lecture me. A lot."

She grinned in equal parts amusement and triumph. "It was a good try."

"Oh, be quiet." But he was laughing back.

They settled into a nice silence, far more comfortable and companionable than before. "Oh," said Sam, "I completely forgot. I was coming to find out if you wanted to get lunch or something?"

"Did I walk into a parallel universe?" he said. "Normally I have to hunt you and Jackson down and remind you to eat before you die in front of those incredibly fascinating alien doohickeys of yours."

"We do not _forget_ to eat," she dismissed. "Well, maybe Daniel does, but I don't. Really. I keep power bars around."

"You know, Sam, geniuses need fuel perhaps more than the rest of us mere mortals."

Sam rolled her eyes at him. "I'll tell you, you're just as bad as the colonel—" She stopped herself abruptly, suddenly finding herself in dangerous, painful territory.

Evan suddenly took on a quality of a puppy who had gone on the rug, like he knew he'd done bad and was just waiting for the yelling. Except he hadn't done anything, that had been all her, and Evan didn't deserve the full brunt of her issues. Sam forced a smile. "Right, then, lunch?"

"Sam..."

She knew that look. She was getting really sick of that look. Her smile was so tight it was almost painful. "I'm fine, really."

"There's no one else here, Sam, it's okay."

Sam was choked with frustration, a part of her did want to talk about it, wanted to yell and scream and cry about it until she just couldn't feel anymore. But she didn't want to burden Evan, didn't know if she even had that right. Before she had a chance to really process her thoughts, to talk herself out of it, she said, "I'm fine. I miss him, that's all. And it's not... it's not getting easier."

Evan frowned at her and was silent for a long moment. "It hasn't been that long, you know. And you guys were... very close," she ducked her head so she wouldn't have to see his expression when he said that, "for a long time. No one expects you to just wake up one morning and be over it."

"He's dead," she said helplessly, "and I didn't do anything to stop it."

"What would you have done? You're not even allowed back there. No one is until the talks end. The Antarctic Treaty didn't cover this. Hell, half the nations involved don't even really believe the whole thing about the Ancients building that outpost millennia ago." Evan grimaced slightly.

"I thought you were supposed to be cheering me up," she said wryly.

He walked over and crouched next to her chair, pressing his hand to her shoulder in warm comfort. "Hey. I'm just saying, this isn't your fault. The technology we were working with was way beyond anything we were capable of dealing with. And you did what you could, before they shut you down. Besides, we've got bigger fish to fry, crazy as that sounds. The program's gone public, everyone who's ever set foot in Cheyenne Mountain is under global scrutiny, and there are still a good dozen high-ranking System Lords out there."

"You don't need to remind me," she said.

"I'm just saying, we need your brain here." He reached up, flicked at a lock of her hair. "You can't save him, Sam. You knew that from the beginning; _he_ knew that from the beginning. He did it anyway. It was his choice."

Sam rubbed her hand over her face. Her eyelashes were wet, her cheeks dry, her mind racing the same guilty track in loops.

"So," said Evan, switching gears blatantly and unabashedly, "lunch?"

"It's all right," she said. "I've bugged you enough." She was immeasurably glad he'd stepped up to the plate in the face of impending breakdown like that, but she felt like she'd imposed upon his friendship too much already. They hadn't known each other that long. She didn't want him thinking she needed constant emotional babysitting.

"Hey, you asked me first. Besides, all of this deep, introspective stuff wore me out. I need to refuel." Evan glanced at her with a wavering measure of anxiety. "C'mon?"

"Oh, all right."

Evan grinned outright, flooding her with warm relief. There were times where she felt like she was falling apart and she was glad to see she hadn't lost his companionship or respect.

"Sure, make it sound like I'm twisting your arm." He secured his fingers just above her elbow and helped her to her feet, guiding her out of the room before she had a chance to object.

Either he was giving her time to process her thoughts or he simply had nothing to say, because the journey to the mess passed in silence. Neither of them spoke again until they got to the lunch line and Evan said casually, "You know, Jackson hates me. Is that bisque? I can't stand bisque."

"Get a sandwich. Daniel doesn't hate you, why would you say that?"

Evan settled a neatly wrapped sandwich on his tray. "He absolutely does. P3X-403, the naquadah mine." He grimaced. "Some artifacts might have been moved by the time he got there."

Sam couldn't help but laugh, instantly drawing to mind the image of Daniel's consternation and childlike inability to express precisely why he was so frustrated. "He wouldn't hold a grudge over that though," she said.

"I don't know about that. Any time I enter a room that he's in, he sort of hovers over whatever he's working on or looking at, like he thinks I'm going to rearrange it when his back's turned."

"And you've never hovered," she said mock-seriously.

"You wouldn't happen to be talking about my painting, would you?"

Sam settled into her chair with an easy smile. "You mean the one you guard like it holds state secrets?" she teased. "Of course not." Still, she was hardly one to talk about odd obsessions and they both knew it. "So, do you want me to talk to Daniel or something?"

"Yes, make this even more like a 'running to Mom' situation," he said. "I'm embarrassed enough."

Sam waved her fork in his direction. "You wouldn't have brought it up if you weren't looking for me to run interference."

"I was trying to give you a feeling of moral superiority."

"Have you ever heard the phrase 'mountain out of a molehill'?"

"Have you ever heard the phrase 'wolf in sheep's clothing'?"

She smirked at him. "Right. You know you're overreacting."

"You're only saying that because you're friends with him."

Sam had to admit, it felt good to focus on a nonsense problem, one where the planet wasn't hanging in the balance. A part of her suspected Evan was making a big deal out of nothing at all if only for the purpose of giving her something easy to deal with. She wasn't about to call him on it, but she was glad to accept the offer.

Evan jittered in the elevator, thumb hovering over the button for staff quarters. "You really want to see it?"

Sam blinked. Abrupt one-eighties, or whatever sharp, veering angle this happened to be, seemed to be Evan's forte. "The painting?"

"Yeah. Do you really wanna see it?"

"I don't know. You really gonna show it to me?"

He gazed at the ceiling for a moment, as if siphoning strength from the elevator. "If you promise not to laugh."

"At you? Never."

"That was very convincing."

"I'd love to see it and I doubt I'd laugh even if it was really, really awful."

"Sam, you are not exactly inspiring confidence," he said, but punched the appropriate button.

Still, he seemed unusually tense on their trek back to his quarters, the sort of reaction she'd never really associated with Evan, who in his time with the program had proven to being extraordinarily good at keeping his head.

"I'm not making you nervous, am I?" she asked, keeping a half step behind to watch him if he decided to run. "I'm not an art critic, by any means."

"It's different. The projects you work on are vital for our continued survival. This is a hobby with no material consequence. Good art speaks for the masses, bad art speaks for the damaged artist's disturbed soul."

"Well, you certainly have the bleak world view of an artist. That's promising."

Evan opened the door and she stood obligingly in the doorway while he went over to the easel. He didn't ask her to shut the door, she did it on her own. He straightened the canvas and beckoned her over to look.

To be honest, Sam hadn't been sure what to expect at all. She couldn't decide if Evan would go for people or places, for straightforward or edgy and off. It was impossible to guess what he'd be like as a painter. But any of the potential subjects she'd dredged up in her mind didn't quite compare with the canvas she was looking at.

"It's not done," he offered apologetically. "It's the first time I've ever really done anything like this."

"Evan, it's beautiful," she said. There were swirls of semi-familiar alien colors, the startling blue of a memorable off-world sky, the golden-brown of a Goa'uld temple, a lush forest green. Within the spots of color, hidden like images in clouds, were slightly darker strokes of 'gate glyphs. She picked some fifteen-odd individual dialing symbols out of the whirling colors at first blush. The entire mix came to a center point, a Stargate chevron, captured so excellently that it practically glowed as it locked. "I've never seen anything like it."

He shuffled a little and rubbed the back of his neck, looking embarrassed and proud. "Well, no, you wouldn't, would you? That's the whole point," he said. "I started it when things started to go south. I don't know, I guess I was just trying to show the beauty of the Program." Sam didn't say anything and Evan gave her a sideways look. "What, too cheesy?"

She squeezed his shoulder. "No. Well, okay, maybe a little. But with everything that's been going on, I think this is the sort of sentiment we all need."

Evan stared her down. "That's nice, Sam. Cheesy," and here she snorted in a very undignified way, "but nice. Thank you."

Sam stayed for awhile longer, studying the painting, listening to Evan describe how he mixed some of the colors. In the wake of all of the bad karma that had stormed down on them, it was nice for a moment to sit back and remember there were still beautiful things.


End file.
